moral decline

The physician

In his parables, Jesus often portrayed himself as a person or thing that was necessary for spiritual health. The Pharisees who were identified as separatists, that is exclusively religious (5330), criticized Jesus for associating with people that were notorious sinners (Matthew 9:11). In his response to their criticism, Jesus compared people that were sinful to those that suffered from a physical disease. He said, “They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick” (Matthew 9:12). The word Jesus used that is translated whole, ischou (is-khoo’-o) means to have (or exercise) force (2480). Ischou is sometimes translated as “can” or “be able.” On the other hand, the word sick or in the Greek, kakos (kak-oce’) refers to someone that is associated with evil (2560). It could be assumed that a person that was kakos had degenerated to such a low level of bad behavior that her physical health was affected by it. For example, a heroin addict that resorts to prostitution in order to support her habit.

In describing himself as a physician, Jesus was implying that a cure for sin existed. Rather than rewarding those who were able to keep God’s commandments, and for the most part, lived moral lives, Jesus focused his time and energy on the needs of those who were spiritually destitute. In his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus stated, “Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:3). The Greek term translated poor, ptochos (pto-khos’) refers to a beggar, someone that is penniless and solicits in the street for money or food (4434). Perhaps, the reason Jesus used such an extreme example of poverty to identify those that would inherit the kingdom of heaven was so that there would be no mistaking the impossibility of people being able to do it on their own. The spiritual need that existed in those who sought help from Jesus was much greater than anyone could possibly describe in physical terms. It was comparable to a dead person being brought back to life, which is probably why Jesus performed that type of miracle on more than one occasion.

Looking at his healing ministry as an object lesson in the effects of sin, Jesus’ identification of himself as the physician was meant to encourage those that were “sick” (Matthew 9:12) to admit their failures and come to him for help. Jesus explained to the Pharisees, “But go ye and learn what that meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice, for I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance” (Matthew 9:13). In other words, if everyone was following the Mosaic Law and obtaining God’s forgiveness through the sacrifices that were prescribed, there would have been no need for Jesus’ ministry. It was only because the Mosaic Law failed to reform people that God sent his son, Jesus, to be the propitiation or atonement for the sins of his people. Mercy or compassion (1656) was an earmark of Jesus’ ministry and the defining characteristic of him in his role as the physician that came “to seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10).

The garden of Eden

The garden of Eden was representative of the idyllic state God intended man to live in. In his original creation, everything God made was good and was meant to be sustained for ever. It was only because Adam and Eve sinned against God that things began to deteriorate. After the earth was cursed, the garden of Eden became restricted and was guarded by angels. It says of Adam in Genesis 3:23-24, “Therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken. So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.”

It can be assumed that the garden of Eden still exists somewhere in the world, but the fact that it is inaccessible to man means that only God and his angels knows where it is. It is possible that the Assyrian Empire was established near, or perhaps just outside the entrance to the garden. In his parable of the cedar of Lebanon, Ezekiel referred to the Assyrian nation as a tree in the garden of Eden. He said, “The cedars in the garden of God could not hide him: the fir trees were not like his bough, and the chestnut trees were not like his branches; nor any tree in the garden of God was like unto him in beauty. I have made him fair by the multitudes of his branches: so that all the trees of Eden that were in the garden of God, envied him” (Ezekiel 31:8-9).

Perhaps the link between the Assyrian nation and the garden of Eden was the origin of human civilization. If Eden represented the ideal state, then Assyria was most likely the opposite, a degenerate pagan center of idolatry. The Assyrians were know to be cruel and were merciless to their enemies. The Assyrian campaigns against Israel and Judah were the most traumatic political events in the entire history of Israel. “The brutal Assyrian style of warfare relied on massive armies, superbly equipped with the world’s first great siege machines manipulated by an efficient corps of engineers. Psychological terror, however, was Assyria’s most effective weapon. It was ruthlessly applied, with corpses impaled on stakes, severed heads stacked in heaps, and captives skinned alive” (Assyrian Campaigns against Israel and Judah).

God’s reference to the garden of Eden in his parable of the cedar of Lebanon may have been intended to show the Assyrians as the end result of the fall of mankind. It could have been that the illustration was also an attempt to associate the Assyrians with Satan’s effort to challenge God’s sovereignty. Setting them up as the chief among sinners, God’s overthrow of Assyria demonstrated that there was no power that could stand against him. He said, “I made the nations to shake at the sound of his fall, when I cast him down to hell with them that descend into the pit: and all the trees of Eden, the choice and best of Lebanon, all that drink water, shall be comforted in the nether parts of the earth. They also went down into hell with him unto them that be slain with the sword; and they that were his arm, that dwelt under his shadow in the midst of the heathen” (Ezekiel 31:16-17).

 

Repentance

A requirement for repentance is an awareness that you have done something wrong. You don’t necessarily have to be aware of a law in order to break it, but you do have to be aware of it in order to feel sorry that you broke it. An example of this is the person that gets a speeding ticket. Before he was stopped by a police officer, he may not have been aware that he was driving 15 mph over the speed limit. Depending on whether or not he can afford the fine or wants to have the ticket on his driving record, he may feel sorry afterwards that he broke the law.

“To repent means to make a strong turning to a new course of action…Hence, when one repents, he exerts strength to change, to re-grasp the situation, and exert effort for the situation to take a different course of purpose and action” (5162). Before the Israelites were taken into captivity, they formed alliances with the nations around them and often paid tribute to foreign kings in order to avoid war. The children of Israel stopped expecting God to defend and protect them and were arrogant about their military capabilities (Sennacherib’s campaign against Judah 701 B.C.). One of the reasons the people didn’t repent was they were no longer reading God’s word (2 Kings 22:8).

God intended the exile of the nation of Israel to bring the people of the southern kingdom of Judah to their senses. Whereas they had been dwelling safe and secure in the city of Jerusalem for hundreds of years, Sennacherib’s successful attacks on Judah’s fortresses served as a warning that God was no longer protecting his people as he had before (Isaiah 36:1). Judah’s appeal to God shows they were beginning to get the message. Isaiah declared, “O that thou wouldest rend the heavens, that thou wouldest come down, that the mountains might flow down at thy presence, as when the melting fire burneth, the fire causeth the waters to boil, to make thy name known to thine adversaries, that the nations may tremble at thy presence” (Isaiah 64:1-2).

By the time the people of Judah were taken into captivity they had become aware of their moral failure. Isaiah declared, “But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as the leaf; and our iniquities like the wind have taken us away” (Isaiah 64:6). Isaiah was speaking prophetically, so at that time, the people were still rebelling against God. It wasn’t until they were in captivity that the people began to repent.

Isaiah spoke of the inevitability of Judah’s captivity, but the actual event was still almost a hundred years away. Isaiah indicated that in the end, everyone would abandon their faith and turn away from God. He said, “And there is none that calleth upon thy name, that stirreth up himself to take hold of thee: for thou has consumed us, because of our iniquities” (Isaiah 64:7). In essence, Isaiah was saying that God was no longer paying attention to what was going on with his people. Although he hadn’t abandoned them completely, the LORD was not working for, but against them.

Only a remnant of God’s people would return to the Promised Land after their captivity in Babylon. Those that would return were expected to do so because they had repented of their sin. One of the characteristics of repentance is submission to the will of God. Isaiah described a change of heart that would be evident in the remnant in terms of clay, that which can easily be molded and shaped into a usable vessel. He said, “But now, O LORD, thou art our father; we are the clay, and thou our potter; and we all are the work of thine hand” (Isaiah 64:8).

Moral decline

The marriage alliance between Jehoshaphat, king of Judah and Ahab, king of Israel was formed primarily to ensure that neither kingdom would be wiped out by Syria. Although the kingdom of Israel was considered to be the dominant partner in the agreement, Jehoshaphat’s devotion to God was a great asset because Ahab knew the LORD’s judgment upon him would eventually come to pass.

After Ahab made a covenant with Ben-hadad, king of Syria, he was told by a prophet of God, “Because thou hast let go out of thy hand a man whom I appointed to utter destruction, therefore thy life shall go for his life, and thy people for his people” (1 Kings 20:42). Then, Ahab stole Naboth’s vineyard and received a visit from Elijah, the prophet with a reputation for pronouncing judgment and executing those who defied God.

Elijah’s message to Ahab was clear, his entire household would be wiped out. Because Ahab humbled himself before the LORD, his punishment was postponed, but not retracted. According to the word of the LORD, “because he humbleth himself before me, I will not bring the evil in his days, but in his son’s days will I bring the evil upon his house” (1 Kings 21:29).

Not knowing what would happen after his death, Ahab may have planned for his son-in-law, Jehoram to take over as king of Israel when all Ahab’s sons were killed. Since Jehoram was from the tribe of Judah and his father, Jehoshaphat was right with God, it was likely his marriage to Ahab’s daughter, Athaliah would secure the kingdom’s future. Unfortunately, Ahab’s wicked influence on his son-in-law caused Jehoram to turn away from the LORD. It says in 2 Chronicles 21:10 that Jehoram “had forsaken the LORD God of his fathers.”

The word translated forsaken in 2 Chronicles 21:10 is azab. “This word carries a technical sense of ‘completely and permanently abandoned’ or ‘divorced'” (5800). Jehoram’s abandonment of his relationship with the LORD after marrying Ahab’s daughter, Athaliah, brought judgment on the kingdom of Judah. As a result, both dynasties were wiped out.

The only survivor of the royal family in Judah was a baby by the name of Joash, the grandson of Jehoram. “But Jehoshabeath, the daughter of the king, took Joash the son of Ahaziah, and stole him from among the king’s sons that were slain, and put him and his nurse in a bedchamber…And he was with them hid in the house of God six years: and Athaliah reigned over the land” (2 Chronicles 22:12).

A double life

After Jeroboam and then Baasha reigned over the northern kingdom of Israel, there was a steady decline in the moral character of the nation’s kings. Beginning with Omri and then later his son Ahab, established Samaria as an alternate royal city or capital of Israel. Ahab had a foreign wife named Jezebel who influenced him to worship and serve the god Baal. It says in 1 Kings 16:32-33 that Ahab “reared up an altar for Baal in the house of Baal, which he built in Samaria. And Ahab made a grove; and Ahab did more to provoke the LORD God of Israel to anger than all the kings of Israel that were before him.”

The primary offense of Ahab was that he established a house of worship for Baal, aka Satan. Even though the gods of the Canaanites were never linked to Satan, the Israelites knew that rebellion against God meant cooperation with his enemy, the devil. I think it is safe to assume that Ahab was under the influence of Satan and his marriage to Jezebel opened the door for him to become an instrument of destruction against God’s kingdom both in the physical and spiritual realms. Ahab’s evil actions were intentional. He knew what he was doing was wrong and he did it anyway.

In light of Ahab’s wicked behavior, it seems surprising that his son’s names reflected a relationship with God. Ahab’s oldest son’s name, Ahaziah meant “The LORD grasps” and the younger son’s name, Jehoram meant “The LORD is exalted.” The reason Ahab gave his sons these names is unknown, but it could be an indication that Ahab was leading a double life. Although he openly worshipped Baal, Ahab’s heart may have belonged to God. That could explain why he remained in power for 20 years in spite of his evil practices.

Ahab did not choose to marry Jezebel. The marriage was arranged by his father Omri in order to seal an alliance with Ethbaal, the ruler of Tyre and Sidon. It is likely Ahab agreed to the marriage to please his father and he probably built the house of worship for Baal to honor his father’s intentions in the alliance with Ethbaal. As much as Ahab was responsible for his evil actions, he was also following in the footsteps of his father as Solomon had done with his father David. Ahab was surrounded by wicked men that had been rebelling against God for decades. Ahab’s greatest crime may have been that he wanted to have it both ways, to worship God and Satan, so that all his bases would be covered.